Atlanta students struggle with math, reading

By Mary Lou Pickel and Nancy Badertscher

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Students in Atlanta Public Schools struggled with math and reading this year, under performing most of their counterparts across the metro area on a statewide test of those skills.

Atlanta schools dominated the list of the metro area's 10 worst performers on the third-, fifth- and eighth-grade tests, according to school-by-school results of the Criterion Referenced Competency Tests released Thursday.

The metro Atlanta school-by-school results followed the earlier release of statewide and district scores, showing gains in some subjects, but continuing struggles in math.

Only 27.5 percent of students who took the math test at Atlanta's White Elementary School passed the test, results showed. Atlanta accounted for eight of the bottom 10 third-grade math scores in the metro area and six of the bottom 10 fifth-grade math scores.

Atlanta's reading scores also were among the worst. A little more than half of the students in the third grade at Atlanta's White Elementary passed the reading portion of the CRCT, results showed. That was the lowest reading score for third grade in the metro area, according to an analysis by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Failure on the CRTC test means a student might not be promoted to the next grade. In addition, the test scores play a role in whether a school makes adequate yearly progress, which is a benchmark under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

Last month, an AJC analysis showed that state test scores at metro schools suspected of widespread cheating last year dropped markedly this year, falling farther in Atlanta than in other districts.

At some elementary and middle schools, Atlanta students failed at two, three or four times the rate they did last year, the analysis showed. In math alone, nearly 2,100 more Atlanta students flunked this year than the year before. That amounted to a 28-percent spike in the number of failing students.

"It is really important to put all standardized test results into perspective," Atlanta Public Schools spokesman Keith Bromery, referring to this year's results.

The school district has made "tremendous incremental improvement" over the past 10 years, he said.

For example, in fourth-grade reading, APS students went from a 47-percent passing rate on the CRCT in 2000 to 81-percent passing in 2010, Bromery said. And in fourth-grade math, APS students went from a 43-percent pass rate in 2000 to 62 percent in 2010.

"Keep in mind that one year's test results constitute essentially a snap shot in time. It indicates where we need to adjust our instructional programs and curriculum to continue this incremental improvement we've experienced over the last decade," Bromery said.

Atlanta schools accounted for eight of the bottom 10 test scores in third-grade reading, seven of the bottom 10 scores in fifth-grade reading and seven of the bottom 10 scores for eighth-grade reading.

The lowest test scores from alternative schools were excluded from the analysis.

Bright spots for Atlanta were Morris Brandon Elementary School in Buckhead, where 100 percent of the students passed the fifth-grade reading exam, and Inman Middle School, where 100 percent passed the eighth-grade reading test.

The highest eighth-grade math results in the metro area were at Forsyth County's Riverwatch Middle School, where 99.1 percent of students who took the math test passed it.

At other schools 100 percent of the students met or exceeded expectations on at least one portion of the test. On fifth-grade math, this included: Fulton County's Crabapple Crossing Elementary, Gwinnett County's New Life Academy, and DeKalb County's Wadsworth Magnet for High Achievers and Kittridge Magnet for High Achievers.

Cobb school spokesman Jay Dillon wrote in an e-mail that even though Cobb has seen gains in its CRCT scores, "It's unfortunate that the overall performance increases we are seeing on the CRCT won’t have any impact on Adequate Yearly Progress. The standards for AYP continue to increase, and since the law looks almost solely at the performance of subgroups, it’s possible that a relative handful of students could cause a school to miss AYP even though the school overall made tremendous gains."

In Atlanta, a charter school, KIPP West Atlanta Young Scholars Academy, had 98.4 percent of its eighth-grade students pass the math test. KIPP West is managed by KIPP, a non-profit national network of charter schools.

"Our students are among the hardest working students in Atlanta," said David Jernigan, executive director for KIPP Metro Atlanta, which oversees four KIPP schools in the area.

KIPP students are required to attend school from 7: 30 a.m. until 5 p.m. each weekday, two Saturdays a month and three extra weeks in the summer, Jernigan said.

"It works out to be 50 percent to 60 percent more time than an average public school student attends school," Jernigan said. "The other thing, of course, is, behind every high test score is a strong teacher."